Assignment No.

2 CARL AXEL FAJARDO JETHRO ADRA BREMEN BSME - 1B

Benedict Anderson’s definition of Nation

Anderson defines the nation as, “an imagined political community – and imagined
as both inherently limited and sovereign…It is imagined because the members of even
the smallest nation will never know most of their fellow-members, meet them, or even
hear of them, yet in the minds of each lives the image of their communion” (Anderson,
B., 1983, p.6).
“The nation is imagined as limited because even the largest of them,
encompassing perhaps a billion living human beings, has finite, if elastic, boundaries,
beyond which lie other nations. No nation imagines itself coterminous with mankind.
Communities are to be distinguished, not by their falsity/genuineness, but by the style in
which they are imagined. Javanese villagers have always known that they are
connected to people they have never seen, but these ties were once imagined
particularly-as indefinitely stretchable nets of kinship and client ship. Until quite recently,
the Javanese language had no word meaning the abstraction 'society.' We may today
think of the French aristocracy of the ancient régime as a class; but surely it was
imagined this way only very late.” (Anderson, B., 1983, p.7).

Characteristics of an Imagined Community

(a) "The nation is imagined as limited because even the largest of them
encompassing perhaps a billion living human beings, has finite, if elastic boundaries,
beyond which lie other nations. No nation imagines itself coterminous with mankind.
The most messianic nationalists do not dream of a day when all the members of the
human race will join their nation in the way that it was possible, in certain epochs, for,
say, Christians to dream of a wholly Christian planet.” (Anderson, B., 1983, p.7).

(b) "It is imagined as sovereign because the concept was born in an age in which
Enlightenment and Revolution were destroying the legitimacy of the divinely-ordained,
hierarchical dynastic realm. Coming to maturity at a stage of human history when even
the most devout adherents of any universal religion were inescapably confronted with
the living pluralism of such religions, and the allomorphic between each faith's
ontological claims and territorial stretch, nations dream of being free and if under God,
directly so. The gage and emblem of this freedom is the sovereign state.” (Anderson, B.,
1983, p.7).

(c) "Finally, it is imagined as a community, because, regardless of the actual

inequality and exploitation that may prevail in each, the nation is always conceived as a
deep, horizontal comradeship. Ultimately it is this fraternity that makes it possible, over
the past two centuries, for so many millions of people, not so much to kill, as willingly to
die for such limited imaginings.” (Anderson, B., 1983, p.7).

The Development of Nationalism as traced in the reading

Nationalism arise through philological-lexicographic revolutions and rise of

nationalist movements through gradual spread of convicting the language being used in
their communities. Language was used as tool to awaken the hearts of the people
where the sleeping nationalism deep within there hearts are being burn out because of
the selection of language being used around the community. Language was used as a
bridge to start a revolution awakening the nationalism around the communities
 In Anderson's analysis, socio-cultural aspects have a central place to explain the
origins of nationalism and nation-ness. He traces the "cultural roots" of nationalism back
to the emergence of capitalism. But, the role of capitalism is not ideological. In other
words, capitalism, being an ideology, did not influence the outbreak of nationalism. Its
role is related to the spread of print. According to Anderson, the rise of capitalism
affected the emergence of nationalism as follows: with the rapid spread of print
capitalism, the literacy rate among ordinary people has increased. The number of
printed books proliferated dramatically, and those printed materials became increasingly
affordable to the public, who, at earlier times, had depended on the church for getting
information. This new era also brought the spread of newspapers. As a consequence,
people have become aware of the fact that the other members of the community they
believe they belong to, really exists. This has helped them imagine the nation and the
feeling of being a nation.

Anderson contends that nationalism emerged at a time when religion as a

cultural conception was declining in importance. The process was heavily correlated to
the Reformation. It has heavily injured the image of church as the supreme authority in
every aspects of life. While the religious perceptions were all the same and unified
before the Reformation, in the new era, the homogenous structure was fragmented into
several major parts. Therefore, the Christian world has fragmented and Protestantism
has increasingly become popular. In Anderson's analysis, the fragmentation in religious
identities led to the emergence of national identities. Furthermore, the rise of languages
other than Latin, which had long been the monopoly of the Church as a sacred
language, diminished the importance of religion in general, and the church in particular.
The void was filled up by national identity.